Clown (film)

Plot

Kent McCoy is a loving, but constantly working, husband and father who hosts a birthday party for his son Jack complete with a clown. However, the clown he hired accidentally goes to another party. Fortunately, Kent discovers an old clown costume in the basement of a house he is selling and dresses himself to entertain everyone. After the party, Kent falls asleep wearing the clown costume, and the next morning he is unable to take it off. The body suit, wig, and red nose are slowly adhering to his skin.

Kent is forced to go to work wearing the costume and the three guys who are helping him renovate the house laugh at him. He tries to remove the costume, cutting his wrist with a knife and breaking a vibrating hand saw. He goes home and tells his wife Meg what is happening, so she tries to help him remove the fake nose. But as she tries to remove the nose, it rips his flesh and wounds him. He goes to the hospital for his wounds where he is inadvertently made fun of by the emergency room doctor. Suddenly, Kent also begins to show strange behavior and a deep sense of hunger, with a noisy gurgling in his stomach. He eats all the food in the house, wrecking the kitchen.

Kent tries to understand what is happening to him and tracks down Herbert Karlsson, the brother of cancer treatment specialist Dr. Martin Karlsson, and the costume's previous owner. Bert tells him on the phone to avoid the costume. Kent meets with Karlsson and learns that the clown costume is actually the hair and skin of an ancient demon from Northern Europe which was long forgotten: the "Clöyne", which attracted five children to devour. Karlsson drugs Kent with tea, revealing that the only way to stop the demon is to behead the wearer. Karlsson lands a butcher knife in Kent's shoulder as Kent jumps up and asks what he is doing. Kent subdues Karlsson during an ensuing fight and learns that he is slowly becoming the demon.

Kent returns home and, after a series of incidents, moves away from his family and into one of his property listings, where he fights his demonic hunger and attempts to commit suicide. He shoots himself in the mouth but does not die, spattering the wall with rainbow blood. He then attempts to behead himself with a pair of buzzsaws but fails, causing a little boy to be killed instead, whom Kent later eats. Kent eventually gives in and starts to become the demon, devouring his second victim, a child who had bullied Jack earlier. Meg becomes involved, trying to understand what is afflicting Kent and to help him fight against the demon. Desperate, she joins forces with Karlsson with the intent of freeing Kent from the suit, although Karlsson is prepared to kill Kent if necessary.

Meg learns from Karlsson that freedom from the clown costume can be gained by offering the demon what it wants: five children. She also learns that many years ago, Karlsson put on the costume to entertain the children at the oncology clinic that Martin worked for and became the demon. Martin smuggled out five dying children from the cancer ward to free Herbert from the costume. Karlsson also warns Meg that the curse follows any part of it, explaining how earlier the family dog had become afflicted by the curse after eating Kent's clown "nose"; which forced Karlsson to kill it by chopping off its head.

Kent, now almost fully lost, succumbs to the demon and begins hunting more children. He sneaks into a local Chuck E. Cheese's and devours one child in a Ball Pit and another in the Jungle Gym. With four children now eaten by Kent only one left if he were to turn back to normal. Meg finds Kent inside the glow in the dark minigolf course. She tries to comfort him, but Karlsson attempts to decapitate him with an axe but fails. Before Kent has a chance to kill Karlsson, Meg tries to get through to her husband. Instead, the demon offers her a deal: feed it one more child, and it will release Kent. It tells her to bring the fifth child to their "special place", otherwise it will go after Jack.

A child from the dental clinic, where Meg works as a nurse, recognizes her and the girl asks for a lift home when she cannot find her parents. Meg drives her to the "special place" and locks her out of the car. She suddenly changes her mind when she thinks Kent is coming, but it turns out to be a police officer. Once Meg realizes that Kent is not there, she drives back home knowing that the demon is going after Jack.

Kent, now under complete control of the demon, chases Jack and kills Meg's father by ripping off his jaw. After seeing her father dead, Meg fights against her husband, but the demon attempts to take both her unborn baby and Jack. After a chase inside the house, Meg is forced to knock his head off with a hammer, killing the demon and her husband. In the end, the costume is packed up to be analyzed by the police.

Cast

Production

In November 2010, Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford uploaded a fake trailer to YouTube that announced Eli Roth would produce the film; Roth was not involved at the time. Roth spoke about the film, saying: "I loved how ballsy they were, issuing a trailer that said, 'From the Master of Horror, Eli Roth.' Some people thought I'd made the movie, or that it was another fake Grindhouse trailer... I really felt these guys deserved a shot, and that people are truly freaked out by evil clowns. It's new territory to make this a version of The Fly, where this guy can feel himself changing, blacking out only to find blood all over his clown suit. You're sympathetic toward a monster until the monster actually takes over."

Principal photography began in November 2012 in Ottawa. Roth joined as a producer, and Watts directed based on a screenplay co-written with Ford.

Soundtrack

Matt Veligdan composed the film's score, and eight songs were featured on its soundtrack.

Release

In September 2012, Dimension Films and FilmNation Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was released on November 13, 2014 in Italy. The UK premiere was February 27, 2015, in Scotland at FrightFest Glasgow 2015, followed by the DVD and Blu-ray release March 2, 2015. The film was also released in the Philippines on March 25, 2015 and in Mexico on May 22, 2015. After being delayed, the film was released in the United States on June 17, 2016.

Critical response

Dominic Cuthbert of Starburst rated it 7/10 stars and wrote, "Clown may be formulaic and filled up to the guts with familiar tropes, but it is tremendous fun and an effective body horror." Howard Gorman of Scream magazine rated it 5/5 stars and wrote, "With Clown the filmmakers have created an all-new monster of demonic proportions and it's a concept that certainly deserves to spawn a sequel or two as the sky really is the limit." Jeremy Aspinall of the Radio Times rated it 2/5 stars and described it as "efficiently put together if a little sedate in pace". Anton Bitel of Little White Lies wrote that the film doubles as an equally harrowing story of "a family man's losing struggle with his own paedophiliac impulses". Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, "Even though it's mostly a bore, there's still some really cool and fun stuff scattered throughout." Keri O'Shea of Brutal as Hell wrote, "Neither frightening nor funny, here's another lesson to prove that fake trailers are often fine just as they are." Joel Harley of HorrorTalk rated it 2/5 stars and wrote, "What could have been one of the few great killer clown movies winds up as yet another disappointment, being too uneven in tone and pace to be considered a success." Clown currently has 48% on Rotten Tomatoes.